Free Gods of Chicago: Omnibus Edition by AJ Sikes

street. Brand felt the tears start quickly, in a flood, and he felt them end quickly as he stood and went to the phone. He stared at the body in the hall while the operator connected him.
    “I’m sorry, Jenkins. I should have given you the mic this morning after all.”

Chapter 8
    The next morning, exhausted from the night before, Brand went into the Record offices early and made straight for the elevators. He got out on the fifteenth floor and stalked down the hall to Chief’s office. The boss was running his hands through his thinning hair when Brand came in.
    “Thanks for saving me the trouble of calling you up here, Mitch. Before you get started, let me tell you what you don’t know and what you aren’t going to do today. I wish it weren’t like this, Mitch. I do. But dammit, you ruffled the wrong set of feathers yesterday. As much as I hate to say it, with this suicide we’ve got a way out of the mess you made.”
    Brand’s head turned around and his body followed. He went out and came back in again. “Yeah, it’s your office all right. But you lost me somewhere between the door and what you’re talking about.”
    “Farnsworth. The old man. He shot himself last night. His daughter is missing, no gun found at the scene. But his secretary was there when it happened. She heard the shot, went to investigate, saw the old man’s brains on the wall behind him. She ran off then, but locked up like always. So the coppers have her held as material for now.”
    Brand stood quiet for a moment. Should he say anything? Not about the ghostly tramp he’d seen on the steps outside the gala hall last night. No. Not a word about that. But if there was a connection between the old man killing himself and the Clark Street hit, and the coppers found out about it and came sniffing around the Daily Record. . .
    “Meant to ask you about Farnsworth this morning, Chief. Guess I don’t have to now.”
    “What about him?”
    “The Outfit might have been running a patsy on the old man. Frank Nitti was out there at the plant yesterday, Emma Farnsworth, too. I ran into both of them before I went in to have a chat with ol’ Josiah. Didn’t get much, but I got enough to make it clear there’s more to find. Or maybe there was.”
    “The Commissioner called, Mitch. You’re to cool it on the Clark Street thing. That’s what I meant about what you’re not doing today. Or any day. No more reports on the massacre, even if you think there’s a connection there. And you know I’m ready to believe you that there is. Just let it go away.”
    Brand opened his lips to protest, but the look in Chief’s eyes took them both back to No-Man’s Land. Chief had been trying to get a wounded boy off the wall and back down into the trench. Artillery came in, just as a second line of boys was going up over the wall. Brand saw a lot of blood. Chief saw more, and too much more. His eyes now had the same look they’d had that day, and Brand got the message loud and clear. He took a deep breath and sat down in the chair beside Chief’s desk.
    “Just send out a story about Farnsworth in print and do a radio bit. Keep it short, and nothing about the Outfit. Not on this story, and—not anywhere, Mitch. When your newsboys get in, I need them up here. The Commissioner’s on his way.”
    “The Commissioner? What’s he want with the kids?”
    “Got me. He says somebody higher up wants to personally debrief with them since they took the paper down to the streets.”
    “Somebody? Somebody who?”
    “I don’t know, Mitch. I’ve been on and off the horn with the Commissioner since yesterday. Way he tells it, somebody’s worried about the massacre getting the city in a panic. I’m surprised he didn’t have anything to say about the photo you grabbed, but maybe he’s just holding that one to hit me with later. If you don’t play ball, I mean. That’s from the Commissioner, Mitch. Everything I’m telling you here. It’s what he